[E3] SCEA E3 Press Conference; Summary and Impressions

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[GENERAL]

• Playstation Vita and PS3 cross-compatibility. There will be DLC for different games released that allow use of the PS Vita as a controller for the PS3 which provides a different perspective to that displayed onscreen.

• New upcoming “free” content for Playstation Plus members including Infamous 2, LittleBigPlanet 2, and Saint’s Row 2.

• Wonderbook– Taking advantage of augmented reality to allow players to interact with “books”. Diggs Nightcrawler- a cartoony Film Noir Wonderbook. Book of Spells- J.K. Rowling’s spell-casting game allows you to use the PS Move as a wand to cast spells. The impression that I got was that It was more of an interactive story than a game. It could be interesting for fans of the Harry Potter series.

• Playstation Mobile (formerly Playstation Suite) for mobile devices; announces HTC as first partner with Sony.

[PS VITA]

• PSone classics, as expected, coming to the Playstation Vita. Hopefully we’ll see more PS2 titles soon- that rich well of content would be enough to propel the handheld throughout its lifespan as a mobile console.

• Hulu Plus, Youtube and Crackle are joining Netflix and Amazon Instant Video on the Vita.

• Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified is coming to PS Vita this holiday season. We’ll see how the first person shooter mechanics handle on the handheld system.

• Assassin’s Creed Liberation is coming to the Playstation Vita. Set in colonial America, it features the first female assassin (Connor) lead in the franchise, and looks damn good. When paired with Assassin’s Creed 3 on the PS3, it unlocks items in both titles. There is a new crystal-colored Vita bundle that includes the game.

[PS3]

• God of War: Ascension: Looks very familiar to the previous installments in the series. Gameplay seems identical, but more graphically beautiful and cinematic. The environments and enemies seem a bit more interactive, as well, and the player can often trigger quicktime events to quickly and spectacularly end a fight- release date of March 12, 2013.

• The Last of Us: players will see extreme similarities between this game and the Uncharted series. In fact, seeing the over the shoulder camera angle and the similar-looking main protagonist, some may easily confuse it for Uncharted. It seems to share the same action-adventure, story-driven, voice-acted style. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The game looks even better than Uncharted, and is significantly more mature. The gritty realism makes the game more brutal than even the God of War live demo. You hear necks breaking and hear enemies scream as they are lit ablaze. This may be the most violent, brutal game I’ve ever seen. Despite being mildly unsettled, I’m still pretty damn excited for the game.

• Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale: Looks pretty much identical to Super Smash Brothers, so some people might call Sony’s ethics into question, but it looks great. If you like Smash Brothers or characters from popular Playstation franchises, it looks like you might like Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. Popular characters include Kratos, Fat princess, Sly Cooper, and Sweet Tooth, and two new characters were unveiled: the Big Daddy from Bioshock, and Nathan Drake, from the Uncharted series. Dynamic maps are impressive and seem to progress through a number of familiar scenes. For instance, a player may start in a futuristic city from Ratchet and clank, only to have the Hydra from God of War blast out of the water and begin wreaking havoc.

• Assassin’s Creed 3 will include Sea locales, where you control a ship with fully-functioning cannons. The water and destruction mechanics looked great in the live demo, and if there was clipping between the ship and water, it was only minor.

• Far Cry 3: alongside the single-player campaign, there will be 4-player co-op as well. It looked amazing, similar to a Call-of-Duty campaign with beautiful foliage. In the live-demo, each player seemed to be doing their own thing; one would be seemingly riding a zipline while shooting down at the enemy, while others might be welding a structure or planting a bomb, and of course, all shooting enemies and covering each other. Free Exclusive DLC for Far Cry 3 for PS3 gamers.